Unlocking Hidden Features of Your Tools

Test equipment manufacturers don't want you to know this: Sometimes we already have better tools than we thought! All we have to do is unlock those features that are hiding inside.

Have you ever had to decide between two models of hardware from the same manufacturer that differ only in a feature or two? For example, you know you'd love to have a little extra bandwidth on your oscilloscope but found the additional cost of the higher-end model a bit prohibitive?

Well, it isn't unheard of for a company to actually release identical hardware in multiple models with the "additional" features present, but disabled on the lower-end versions. In some cases, these features can actually be unlocked!

If you think about it, this practice can make financial sense in some cases. There is less design time and probably some saved manufacturing costs if you only have one set of hardware. Assuming the cost difference in the components isn't that big, it may very well be cheaper just to ship out the more advanced hardware and cripple the features in software, or possibly omit a jumper or two. This would allow you to have multiple price points for specific target audiences with a single piece of hardware.

People have seen this in consumer electronics for years. You can open a home stereo and find spots on the PCB for additional features of the next model up. Why should scopes and meters be any different?

Join us on the next few pages as we explore two great scope upgrades and two multimeter improvements.

I don't know about Rigol but I imagine Agilent is a heavy advertizer in your publications. Is it wise to publish methods for hacking / bypassing the upgrade process on their products? By bypassing their sales process you reduce their revenue which eventually makes it into the ad budget. This article covers inexpensive products but the precedent scares me a little...

I wonder what these companies do if you return the unit for service and in the process of doing the repair they discover that you've activated functions that the original model didn't have? I would imagine in many cases from that point on your warranty is null and void because of the "non-authorized" nature of your "repair". I would also tend to think they would be wiithin their rights to just declare the entire main board was defective and max out both the parts and labor components of your repair (maybe even replacing these boards with "non-upgradeable" models) since now you're on the hook for the entire ball of wax! What if you regularly send the unit out to metrology, wouldn't they be inclined to "rat out" your little "upgrade" to the OEM too (since now there could be more functions to calibrate so higher costs for them to bear)? Or I suppose you could undo the repair before you sent it in and redo it after it comes back...

This reminds me of a situation that used to exist in the old mainframe computer days where nothing was ever purchased and everything was on lease by the month, service included. So there was one model of processing system which was frequently field-upgraded to a higher-performance model by replacing all the circuit cards which frequently took a process of several hours during which all the boards were removed and taken out, then a different crew came out and installed all the new boards. The truth of the situation turned out to be that the cards were all the same EXCEPT for a divide-by-two jumper in the master clock chain, the rest of the procedure was simply "choreographed" to demonstrate to the customer how much value he was getting for his much higher lease rate! On the rare occasion that a customer discovered the charade (generally after it was divulged by a "rogue" employee of the computer company) the purpose of the existence of the two models and lease rates was "justified" by the higher speed at which the printer components had to operate for the higher-performance model which resulted in much higher mechanical service costs (I guess you had to have been there but the justification really wasn't all that unreasonable). Now in THAT situation an unauthorized "field upgrade" would definitely NOT be ignored (I believe there was an OS function that even identified the machine as being the higher-performance model)!

I could see them being upset if maybe we uncovered something new that might impact them in negative ways. They are fully aware of these things already and at this point, these upgrades can actually serve to make some older models more attractive if they are found.

Well, the reason why I write this title down is exactly how I think about the sales method with 'soft options'. I hate it. Maybe this might work for the 'average people', but if it works for engineers, I have my doubts. Well, at first, let us assume the hardware is there. No add-ons needed, that's where we are dealing about. right?

My thought then is: That stupid company did not sell a big bunch of their equipment, because they have hidden it's features in the closet. While it already has been developed, engineering hours have been spend, so, WHY THE HECK DONT YOU ALWAYS SELL IT WITH IT THEN? JUST GIVE IT AWAY !!!

That has been said. And I will assure everybody here that the sales quantities certainly will go up, paying for the development anyway. And for logistics, lots easier too, saving lots of money again. Maybe it is time for a poll if engineers want this or if they want to buy for each stupid option or silly trigger method. Personally I think these times are over.

Navelpluis wrote: My thought then is: That stupid company did not sell a big bunch of their equipment, because they have hidden it's features in the closet. While it already has been developed, engineering hours have been spend, so, WHY THE HECK DONT YOU ALWAYS SELL IT WITH IT THEN? JUST GIVE IT AWAY !!!

Here's an example of why you (the vendor) want to have hidden features. Let's say you have two products A and B, where B is an upgraded version of A that the same except for more software features and more cleverness in the FPGAs. In addition, B may include licensed software from another vendor for which you pay per-unit royalties. It costs exactly the same to make A and B hardware.

Here's the issue: you somehow need to pay for the development and support of B, which is more costly than A. If you have only one model and price it high, a customer who only needs the capabilities of A will buy a cheaper product C from another vendor. If you drop the cost of your one model to compete with C, you won't make enough money to pay for the development of B.

Solution: Price model A cheaper than C, so you get that market. Price model B more expensive than C, but people who need the additional capabilities are willing to pay for B because other vendors' products D, E, and F are more expensive. You do need a secure way to upgrade A to B, otherwise customers will buy A and then upgrade it to B without paying the difference.

My second-favorite example of this was a computer from the 1960s or 1970s which was microcoded, a common way of implementing an instruction set in the days of slow core memory. They sold different models, charging more for the higher-performance models. The only difference is that the low-performance models had extra NOP instructions in the microcode to slow down execution. Otherwise, the machines were identical.

My favorite example is an IBM card reader. They had two models, one twice as fast as the other. You could actually get a field upgrade from the low-speed to high-speed version. The IBM tech came in with a big toolbox and removed a panel to expose the mechanism. Then he looked around to see if anyone was looking and quickly moved a rubber belt from one set of pulleys to another :-)

[Both stories were heard from other people, so may be aprocryphal. But they pre-date the Internet, so they must be true.]